Risk & Insurance had an interesting article about “scientific perspective” in predicting jury verdicts. The premise of the article is that the quality of jury consultants varies wildly because different jury consultants use different methodologies. In the litigation world, there are no barriers to entry for those who seek to…
David Davis, a Massachusetts based jury consultant, offers five thoughts in The Jury Expert (link since removed) on the psychology of how jurors process requests for damage awards I think interests accident and malpractice lawyers. I found of particular interest his theory that consumers—and by implication, jurors—have a propensity to…
In his blog the Art of Advocacy, Baltimore lawyer Paul Mark Sandler suggests a counter to the slippery slope argument: “The ‘slippery slope’ argument falsely assumes that once you take a moderate first step in a particular direction, a catastrophic chain of events will follow. Most times, a better metaphor…
The Wall Street Journal has an editorial with an anti products liability lawyer spin. No surprise. But what is surprising is that I agree with it. Considering Enron and other business collapses that left stockholders holding the bag with no actual picture of the company’s financial condition, the Financial Accounting…
Voir Dire in Maryland is often a hard experience for injury lawyers on both sides of the aisle because Maryland arguably has the most truncated voir dire process in the country. I’ve tried a lot of cases where both lawyers could glean just a few relevant things from the jurors,…
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled yesterday in Peyton-Henderson v. Evans that Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge George L. Russell, III did not err in transferring a lawsuit from Baltimore City to Baltimore County because of the May 2004 shooting at Randallstown High School. The ruling covers no new…
Our lawyers have long believed that professional expert witnesses’ financial information, including their tax returns, may be discoverable and admissible for the purpose of showing potential bias. Yesterday, the Alaska Supreme Court joined the list of jurisdictions, including now Maryland, that agree with us. Noffke v. Perez Noffke v. Perez…
The Maryland Court of Special Appeals decided the Titan v. Advance case yesterday. Titan is a case where the Plaintiff alleged negligent repair of a roof that led to the clogging of a roof drain, which then resulted in the Plaintiff’s premises to flood. It is located on Eastern Avenue…
Last month, retired Howard County Judge Dennis M. Sweeney wrote an article in a series of articles he is writing for the Daily Record. The latest article discusses voir dire. One point Judge Sweeney makes is that judges have an aversion to proposed voir dire questions that seem to be…
I had a jury trial in an auto accident case in Anne Arundel County against State Farm last week. It was a soft tissue injury case with over a year of treatment. It was a case we inherited from another lawyer who retired last year. The biggest weakness of the…